


Hold Your Voice In My Heart (Till I Can Hold You In My Arms)

by fluffernutter8



Category: Agent Carter (TV), Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Diplomacy, F/M, International Relations, Madam Secretary AU, cameos by other characters, long distance communication aka just a lot of talking tbh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-01
Updated: 2021-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:54:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28472715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fluffernutter8/pseuds/fluffernutter8
Summary: Two weeks before Christmas probably wasn't the right time to schedule a whirlwind diplomatic mission across three continents...
Relationships: Peggy Carter/Steve Rogers
Comments: 12
Kudos: 39





	Hold Your Voice In My Heart (Till I Can Hold You In My Arms)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sokovianaccords (eurogirl)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/eurogirl/gifts).



“Is my teal suit clean?”

“Pantsuit or skirt?”

“Either.” Peggy drops the sack with her running shoes hopefully into her suitcase - as if she’ll have a moment to spare for a centering jog - and then considers. “Both, actually. They’re quite comfortable, and sometimes a bold shock of color is what you need to give a shakeup to whoever is being inflexible on the other side of the table.”

Steve glances up from the pile of papers he’s grading, fiddling with his glasses as he squints into space for a moment. They share a home office with actual desks in an attempt to keep the bedroom as a work-free zone, but it hasn’t exactly been a success so far. Although, on the other hand, Steve agreed to add an extra section to his class in the upcoming semester because the first was already so oversubscribed and Peggy is, well, Peggy, so perhaps it has been a resounding success after all.

“The pantsuit should be in the dry cleaning bag in the closet,” he says finally. “But I think the last time I saw the other one, it was being used as part of a fake press conference in a game of ‘pretend to be Mommy,’ so it’s probably crumpled somewhere in the dress up box.”

Peggy sighs and goes to tear open the dry cleaning bag. The teal pantsuit is indeed inside, as is a charcoal one and an abstractly printed blouse she’d nearly forgotten about. Those will do well enough. She does another review of her mental checklist, fingers making absent circles in the material of the blouse’s cuff. She really does wish that at least the other teal jacket were clean; perhaps she could bring it with and have it cleaned on the trip, but things will already be such a whirlwind, and she hates taking advantage of embassy staff that way…

“I’ll have it cleaned by the time you get back,” Steve says softly, placing his hands on her waist from behind. He dots a kiss just below her ear. “And I’ll remind the kids that your closet is off-limits.”

Turning in his arms, she kisses his mouth. “I have so many out of fashion outfits that they can use as freely as they please. I’ve told them that they’re perfectly welcome to take advantage of my undergraduate plaid and shoulder pads, so I have no idea why they insist on ransacking my favorite pieces.”

“I guess you gave them your good taste.” He kisses her again. “Mistake.”

With a wink, he pulls away, walking through to the en suite to start getting her toiletries in order. She watches him go. The world is going to offer her some wondrous sights in the near future, but she doesn’t think they’ll compare to her husband in loose pajama bottoms and glasses putting her cosmetics into their proper compartments.

Sighing, she pulls her eyes away to focus instead on making certain that the hangers for each of her outfits contain both jackets and bottoms. There had nearly been an incident on her first international trip when the trousers she had planned to wear to dinner with the prime minister of Finland had accidentally been left behind (though there had been something of a trend over the next few months of mismatched professional looks, so it hadn’t ended in disaster).

“How are things seeming for your students this semester?” she calls to Steve, catching a glimpse of a note penned a significant way down the margin of the top paper on his pile. Steve does his marking in green pen because he says that red just makes things seem unnecessarily tense; he goes mulish whenever she points out that a similar reaction to green ink can be developed as well.

“A couple of standouts, but most of them at least understood the information and made decent points.” His voice echoes a bit as it comes back. “I’m going to refer a whole group of them to the writing center, though. They have consistent, basic problems with their writing that should have been addressed back in high school, but we’ll have to take care of it now.”

“Nadine won’t be particularly happy, especially as I’m certain that most of the peer tutors are deserting her to handle their own exams.”

There’s a bit of a clattering of drawers and items shifting around. He has to speak up to be heard over the noise. “So I’ll pitch in for a few shifts.” 

She has images of him trying to help just one last person as the staff turns off the lights in the library around him, even though she knows that he would never let his work responsibilities make him forget those to his family. Instead she says, “Don’t forget to have lunch, would you please? The last time you overworked yourself and didn’t eat, you started that six month back and forth with that Dutch professor in the Journal of Social History.” She waits for an affirming sound, but when all that comes back is more rummaging, she adds, “And don’t bother adding in any nice bath things. It isn’t as if I’ll have very much time to enjoy them.”

He comes out of the bathroom with her kit zipped, dropping it in her suitcase and putting an arm around her. “The Dutch guy deserved it,” he reminds her.

“Of course, darling, but nevertheless, if I catch wind that you’ve written the words, ‘Dear sir,’ while I’m away, you’ll deserve what I do to you just as much.”

Giving her one final squeeze, he goes to settle himself back beneath the covers. “Okay, well, once you’re done fixing the rest of the world, do you think you could do a little tune-up on the American education system? If we got these skills cemented early, I wouldn’t have to worry about spending time making sure it’s done now and you wouldn’t have the worry about the consequences of that.”

“Oh, certainly.” With one final glance over everything, she zips up her case and sets it by the doorway for the morning, continuing dryly, “Impossibly, no one before has ever tried to make inroads to that minorly imperfect area of policy in this country.”

“Don’t think I don’t notice that when you’re criticizing, you always say ‘this country’ like you do when you’re telling me what ‘my children’ did,” he protests, laughing when she gives him a _yes, and…?_ eyebrow. He catches her hand and kisses it. “Regardless, I won’t apologize for having faith in you managing the impossible. Just the climate agreement is enough to show that you have some unparalleled problem solving skills, but I can keep going down the list if you’d like me to remind you of your own credentials.”

“I had plenty of sleepless nights earning them,” she says playfully. “I think I remember them well enough on my own. But there’s also the matter of the Secretary of Education having something to say about my sticking my nose in.”

“I’m sure she wouldn’t mind another pair of hands. And if not—” He shrugs. “You probably have something on her.”

“Of course. Well then, I’ll simply give the schooling thing a bit of a spit polish so my husband can reap the benefits of improved basic essay-writing skills.”

“There are probably benefits for you too,” he points out in laughing defensiveness. “In lowered blood pressure when I can stop complaining about it all, not to mention that this is the education system that’s training all of your future staffers.”

“In my experience, State Department staffers were all self-motivated high-achievers from birth.” Her expression turns a bit pensive. “Though I’m certain that there are those whose points of view we could have benefited from who never made it to Washington out of circumstance.”

He kisses her hand again. “So I guess the next step is to try to control the circumstances.”

“I’m already doing that for the majority of the world.” She yawns and climbs onto the bed, allowing him to thrust his papers to the side before she stretches her body over his. “I’ll leave the rest up to the other cabinet secretaries.”

“Hmm.”

They lie in silence for a while, his hand stroking absently up and down her spine, before she adds quietly, “Speaking of big headed high-achievers, did I tell you that Secretary Thompson tried to sneak his SAT score into conversation as we were leaving the Situation Room yesterday? As if that could possibly impress me - or even be relevant considering that it’s been decades since he took the exam.”

Steve laughs. “The Cambridge thing still driving him nuts, Dr. Carter?”

She settles further into his chest and says, with just a touch of grumpiness, “It’s a shame that he’s joining us even for part of the trip. I’d have enjoyed some time off from pretending we agree on foreign policy strategy, and a bit more time actually being able to implement my strategy without the military-industrial complex poking about.”

“Look at it this way,” Steve says. “He’s joining you for the middle leg, days eight and nine out of eleven. Maybe by then you’ll be so jet-lagged from your whirlwind tour that you won’t even have the brain power to have it out with him.”

She simply looks at him.

“Okay, you’re right,” he concedes. “There’s always punching him, I guess.”

“Always a good option,” she agrees. Steve puts his arms around her, and it is just the right level of coziness. Her husband is, despite his muscles, quite comfortable, and she finds herself drifting off a bit.

“Eleven days,” she murmurs. “Quite a while away from home. I’ll miss you.”

“Eleven days of you out there saving the world, and then home in time for Christmas.” He holds her just that bit tighter. “We’ll be here waiting for you.”

* * *

(When she opens her suitcase in Latvia a day and several time zones later, she finds that Steve did sneak a couple of bottles of nice bath products in. _Every superhero needs a few relaxing minutes to herself_ , reads the note he’d rolled beside them. She smiles and goes to run the tub. She takes her phone with her; Steve can be a bit hard for others to read, but she knows how much he’ll enjoy some photographic evidence of her appreciation.)

* * *

“—and I wasn’t truly expecting a resoundingly positive response to my speech, considering the fact that I barely let message about resisting the normalization and acceptance of far-right ideology remain subtext, and a good portion of the invited guests were members of parties that practically have ‘normalization and acceptance of far-right ideology’ as their motto.” She readjusts the phone tucked between her shoulder and ear, flipping off the bathroom light. “But practically as soon as I’d stepped away from the podium, I was being asked to meet with the prime minister, who reminded me, at great length and volume, that it’s a bit brazen to give such a speech considering that I’m not representing a country which is a particularly sterling example.”

“There’s a difference between a fringe movement, even one that’s trying to move into the mainstream, and the message coming from the highest levels of government,” Steve points out, as she knew he would. “I don’t need to remind you that the president would never put up with that kind of garbage.”

“Of course I know that.” Dressed more comfortably now, her gown on a hanger and hair down from its updo, she slides into her slippers and goes to dig through the bag she’d wheedled from the kitchen staff. “And the politicians as bigoted as some of those here - or at least those willing to be as outwardly so - are thankfully fewer and typically disavowed. But it doesn’t make me feel altogether better about the whole of it.” She opens up a container to find stuffed cabbage - lukewarm, but she isn’t in a position to be picky, and she’s certainly eaten worse. Digging out a fork, she stabs into it and says, “It’s simply that had I realized that this job would involve so much hypocritical lecturing, I would have simply stayed in academia.”

“You were never hypocritical in your lectures, no matter how much the students or the administration deserved it,” he reminds her. “And there’s no way that you would have turned down the opportunity to change the world.”

“I suppose we must have had at least one thing in common to convince us to be married,” she says, managing to keep a dry tone around a mouthful of food.

“Then I’m glad I put ‘interest in making a difference required’ at the top of my dating profile.”

“As if you would have ever made a dating profile,” she says fondly, tucking her feet beneath herself. “The only time I expect you’ll be featured on any sort of singles app is if someone steals your picture and uses it as their profile image.”

“That Washington spouses thing is never going to stop haunting me.” She can picture the grumpy twist of his mouth; it’s what he looks like every time the list is mentioned.

“I miss you,” she tells him, swallowing her last bite, turned heavy in her throat.

“I miss you, too,” he says, and the smile in his voice makes her picture that instead. “We’ll see you in ten days.”

* * *

“So if we have the skates for Vi and the beanbag chair for Owen, there’s only Mini left,” Peggy summarizes, clasping her hands and stretching her arms behind her back. Her eyes flick between the video chat window showing Steve’s face, and their shared documents of links that they add to throughout the year when the children mention something they want or a gift idea comes to them. The lists for their older children had been lengthy, giving them plenty of options, but their youngest has a bit more of a one track mind.

“Monster truck tickets it is,” Steve sighs, clicking over to the website. He stops to skewer her with a stare through the camera. “And there has to be a real international crisis for you to miss it - don’t just make something up about the Genovians the morning of.”

“I have absolutely no idea why you would think I would want to avoid watching your country’s greatest entertainment invention.”

“Our country’s,” he says automatically, still clicking through Ticketmaster. 

“Yes,” she drawls. “And per the comment threads, there seems to be universal rejoicing that you extended the privileges of citizenship to me.”

“Even I know to never read the comments.”

“Interesting, as I just read those on the Times article about my speech to the Polish parliament this morning and found there to be some particularly spirited counterarguments to those who thought that I should have taken a different tone. I would rather say that this commenter could ghostwrite some of your lectures if they wanted to, actually.”

“Well, you have better things to do than read the comments,” he grumbles. He’s barely gotten the words out before there’s a crashing noise somewhere in the background - faint to her, though she suspects that it was much louder in person. He turns away automatically, then looks back at her. “Apparently so do I.”

“Only tell me if they’ve burned anything down, hmm?” There’s a knock on her door just then, echoing the childish fists now pounding on their bedroom door behind Steve at home. She had blocked off forty-five minutes to bolt down a late lunch and finalize Christmas gifts with Steve but apparently they’ve sped through them. “No rest for either of us,” she sighs. “At least for another nine days.”

“The bed’s waiting for you,” he says with a smile, bending down so his face stays in frame even as he stands. “I bought new pillows.”

“Well, when you put it that way, I suppose I will come home.” Another knock behind her, precise as only Jarvis can be, but no less compelling for it. “I can’t imagine what would tempt me otherwise.”

“Can’t imagine,” he echoes, and gives one his sideways smiles before he goes to make certain the children haven’t actually burned anything down.

* * *

“And you’re certain they swept the area sufficiently?” Peggy says, pacing. She has one hand pressed to her ear, although her reception is fine and the sounds of the party are not overly noticeable behind the closed doors; perhaps it just makes her feel as if he’s nearer if his voice is louder, pressed closer into her. “I think they should do it once more. You know that there are always so many little hiding places, and the building is older, and I just—”

“I made them do it three times,” Steve admits. “They said it’s clear.” His voice isn’t purposefully calming, but it is calm, steady as stone. 

She exhales then breathes in again. The air is scented with garlic and tomato and something creamy; she notes it automatically though nothing about the smells sinks in or connects. She stands there willing _fine, fine, fine_ into herself, but it doesn’t work.

“They had a custodian’s uniform, Steve,” she tells him, as if he might not remember. “They had schematics of the school and the foolish Facebook post from that awful Lacey Lloyd about ‘someone special in Room 6b with Melissa!’ with the absurd winking face. If it hadn’t been for the updated security protocols, they could have found Violet so easily, and probably the twins too.”

“But there _were_ updated security protocols. They were still two hundred miles away when the agents picked them up. I talked to Ron from the Secret Service - the online postings they found indicated a small group of right wing reactionaries set off by the shift in State’s priorities who happened to get just the smallest bit lucky.” He takes his own deep breath. “It was an attempt, and not even a successful one. The systems worked. Our precautions worked. And if these guys have connections to something bigger, we’ll find out.” 

“And you’re certain that I shouldn’t come home? There isn’t one thing about this trip that’s essential.”

“Don’t let the president hear you say that. Or the taxpayers,” he says, trying for a joke, but she isn’t in the mood.

“Steve.” 

Serious again, he says, “Don’t cut your trip short. It _is_ important - your work always is - and the kids are fine. Honestly, Peg, I think if they hadn’t been brought to the safe house, they wouldn’t even know anything had happened, and as it is we told them that it was just in case. There isn’t even a reason to keep them home from school tomorrow - changing up the routine would just freak them out and make them think something was really wrong.”

She presses her hand over her eyes. Her head aches and her insides feel shivery and twisted, and there’s still a party going on in her honor. In a few moments, she will have to go back to being as charming and cunning and aware as the United States’ most important diplomat is required to be, and in a few hours she will be on a video call with the directors of the FBI and the Secret Service, stoically pushing them through the details of the way her children might have been harmed today, but for now it is just her speaking with Steve and she can allow herself this vulnerability. “I wish I were there with you.”

“I wish you were too. Owen’s decided to challenge himself and learn his times tables up to twenty instead of twelve, and I keep embarrassing myself when he tries to give me pop quizzes. You’re much better at math.”

A laugh actually does escape her this time, just slightly shaky. “Well, instead of learning simple multiplication, you can exchange your challenge for mine and go apologize to the Italian prime minister for missing half of the dinner he is hosting on my behalf.”

“Didn’t you have an Italian great-grandfather, or something? Just talk a lot about your shared heritage - it’s what I did when you got pulled away from that state dinner last year and I had to appease the Irish delegation.”

“My mother just sat up straight with the sudden urge to tell you to bite your tongue. You know for a fact that every branch of my family practically came over with the Conqueror.”

She can practically see his shrug. “So pretend. Tell them Mini’s short for Maddalena instead of Madeleine.”

“Steve Rogers, I can’t believe you’d endorse lying.”

“I’m not endorsing lying, I’m saying that _you_ have the _option_ to lie. And anyway, there are extenuating circumstances.” The grin in his voice fades a bit as he adds, “I’m sure he’d understand if you told him that.”

“I’m sure.” They’re both quiet for a moment before she says, “Steve? Were you scared?”

The official story is that they met at Cambridge when he was studying abroad, but it isn’t true. Oh, they did both study there and they did encounter each other again at the time, but it wasn’t their first meeting. Her work with military intelligence is still largely classified. The first time she saw her husband, he was issuing orders in the midst of a firefight. She’s rarely seen him back down from anything, never seen anyone who carried the weight of command as naturally as he did or stood so firmly in the face of danger. 

He breathes out on the other end of the phone line, a low rush. “There were about ten minutes when they’d gotten me to the safe house and debriefed me but the kids were still en route. I almost took down the agents at the door. I’ve never—In my life, I’ve never been scared like that.”

“I love you,” she says without thinking about it, without lowering her voice. It’s such a fact. “Hold the children for me, please. I’ll see you in eight days.”

“As long as the opera performance they have scheduled doesn’t have you running home first,” he tells her, and then, “I love you too.”

* * *

“And how come there’s only cats in your pictures? I thought you said you were with turkeys.” She smiles at how terribly suspicious Owen sounds. She is going to have to teach him that interrogations work better if you keep some cards close to the vest.

“She’s not _with turkeys_ , she’s in Turkey, stu—”

“Violet,” Steve’s voice cuts in warningly, softer than the others. She can picture the kids crowding around the phone on speaker in the backseat as Steve drives them to school.

“She’s in Turkey, silly. That’s not an animal, it’s a country in…” Vi manages to maintain her superior tone even as her knowledge of geographical specifics fails her. “It’s a country far away.”

“Did you buy our postcard yet, Mom?” asks Mini in her strangely husky voice. “And also you should buy us a new album because our first one is getting full.”

The tradition had started by coincidence. Her promise of souvenirs from her first diplomatic trip had been harder to keep than she had expected between meetings, and instead of returning with presents specifically selected to balance individual personalities with the color and culture of Brazil, she had arrived with a bagful of items purchased at the last minute. The keychain, magnet, and T-shirt had been accepted, but for some reason it was the postcard which delighted them. It had been passed from hand to hand, and eventually Peggy told them that she was putting it into the photo album to keep it safe and so they could all see it. After that, however, they had begged postcards from each place she visited, and one postcard turned into ten and soon they needed to give them their own home.

Steve inserts, “I’ll get the album for you. Mom has other things to do than try to find Ankara’s version of Target.”

“I certainly have things to do, such as get the loveliest postcard in the whole city to bring home. Mr. Jarvis says we’ll be going straight there after my meeting.” Jarvis is keeping precise pace beside her despite his longer legs. She looks over at him for confirmation and he nods. “He’s already put it on the schedule.”

“You should also put on the schedule to relax,” Owen says. “Miss Ruday says that if you are busy, you should write things down so you remember them, and no one is busier than you, Mom.”

“That’s very considerate—”

Mini interrupts, “And Miss Ruday was showing us how to do calm-down breathing. You make your belly pull in and you go like this.” There’s a loud blowing sound that almost makes Peggy take the phone away from her ear, but Mini’s seven-year-old lungs are not particularly capacious and after another few seconds she is adding breathlessly, “And you should find a soft place to lie down to do it.”

“I’ll make sure,” Peggy promises, smiling, as she and her staff reach the end of the hall. “In fact, I think I see a place to try right now.”

“Perfect timing,” Steve says. “We’re pulling up to school.”

Peggy goes through the “I love you all,” and “learn something interesting,” and a series of kisses as the kids shout their goodbyes and pile out. Whoever is last throws the phone at Steve; luckily his reflexes are good.

“I love you as well,” she tells him. “Just a week now.” 

She can hear his smile. “I’ll see you there.”

She ends the call, puts her phone away, straightening her shoulders and nodding to Jarvis, who stands in front of her ready to open the door. Her children are safe and vibrant, and she has a prime minister to see.

* * *

“He said that it was just a general announcement,” Steve says, leaning away from the phone to spit into the sink. It’s rather incredible how clearly he can speak around a mouthful of toothpaste; she can’t think of any particular life experience which would have endowed the skill, so she supposes it must be inherent.

“Well, considering you’re the only one known in the department for having such relaxed policies...”

“Nat said the same thing: definitely aimed at me.” He sighs. “It isn’t that I won’t ever fail _anyone_ , but I just don’t see the need to make things more difficult than they have to be. We’re there to give people an education. So I’ll give extra office hours and tutor those who need it, and I won’t ask everyone to bring me a doctor’s note or a death certificate when they miss classes, and I can give extensions when I want, and I happen to think it’s a good thing when as many people as possible get high grades.”

There’s the small clink of his toothbrush being dropped back into the holder. He’s such a creature of habit that she can picture what he will do next, exactly how he will flip off the bathroom light without looking and go to turn off the bedroom overhead too, the way he’ll listen in the hall for the kids one last time before he moves to turn down the bed.

It’s comforting to know all this, to be able to feel as if she is there alongside him. They talk as often as they can, but sometimes the distance is especially acute and she feels particularly far from him. They spoke in his morning and now just before he is going to bed, and in between she has been in meetings, press conferences, an unfamiliar bed, through time zones and across borders; now she sets her cup of coffee onto her table with its wonderful view over Addis Ababa as he places his water glass in its traditional place beside their bed. If she can’t be with him, she likes being able to imagine him.

“Anyway, he might be the department head, but he doesn’t actually get a say over what I do in my classes. And grades are turned in, so I’m officially on vacation.”

“Which means getting up to extracurricular trouble, I assume,” and she knows that just as she can picture the way he’s just shoved his pillows up against the headboard, he can see the exact way her smile has turned just slightly amused even as she pretends seriousness.

“I have a half written article about immigrant support for Irish revolutionaries. I think I’ll get a chance to write a couple of sentences of it, maybe even a paragraph before spring semester starts.”

“And I look forward to reading every word.”

“Lies aren’t good in a marriage,” he reminds her.

“Well, I’ll end up reading it all as you agonize over synonyms.”

“I love you too.”

“Hmm.” She takes her last sip of coffee and checks her watch, a present from him several anniversaries ago. “Unfortunately my time as your thesaurus will have to wait until after my meeting with the head of the African Union and some potentially uncomfortable conversations regarding growing Chinese influence.”

“Well, you’ll have at least five more days of kicking other people’s asses before you have to focus on my overly wordy one.”

“You have a very nice arse, verbose or not,” she tells him, allowing the sound of his laugh to slide through every part of her, fortifying her for the day ahead. She stands then, stretches, takes her jacket from the bed. “Sleep well now, my darling. We’ll speak in a few hours.”

“And I’ll see you in just a few days.”

* * *

“Hey, Peg, sorry I missed your call - there was a blood donation truck set up near the grocery store and it’s been a couple months since I gave, but then they ended up asking if I could do the power red, which took longer than I thought...Anyway, I’m glad things seem to be going well with the meetings in New Delhi, or at least what’s being reported here. I’m sure you’ve been keeping track of Thompson’s media appearances, drumming up support for his part of the trip, all India/Pakistan nukes and justifying weapons contracts when it’s obvious that the domestic tensions between Hindus and Muslims are the pressing issue right now. Which you already know, and I’m rambling. Sorry I never learned how to leave a good voicemail. I hope you can still love me anyway.”

* * *

“...So please tell Owen that everyone enjoyed his joke about Turkey and New Delhi, although obviously I didn’t actually tell it to anyone - he’s clearly inherited his sense of humor from you, and that takes a certain level of refinement to appreciate. And besides, you never know what will be overheard and cause an international incident. Then again, perhaps some wordplay from a seven year old could be the surprising thing that soothes the tempers over here. Things are going about as well as expected; I would never say ‘I told you so’ to the president, but tying diplomatic trips and military ones is always going to cause trouble, and that is before Jack Thompson even gets involved. I’m quite good, but even I can’t pull a rabbit out of every hat, especially when some people keep trying to steal the hats in the first place.

“I’m not even certain I’m making sense anymore. All of this was to say that I’m sorry we’ve been missing each other all day, and I hope we’ll manage to speak soon. Either way, I shall see you in four days.”

* * *

There’s nothing that Peggy can put her finger on regarding why Steve doesn’t sound quite like himself the next time they speak. He is attentive as always, talking through her perspective on the India summit compared to how it is being portrayed in the stateside press, celebrating her shedding of Thompson for the remainder of the trip, checking on how she and her staff are handling the pace of their country-hopping, asking about the updated schedule is for her Sri Lanka stop tomorrow. His questions and answers do not come any slower than usual, he makes her smile, and yet something is off. If she had to specify, she would say that he sounds tired, even though he doesn’t really, even though more than anything it’s a feeling along her spine, tickling the back of her brain.

“Now tell me about your day,” she finally says. So he talks about meeting up with Bucky for lunch - he’s been asked to design some prostheses for the VA, and apparently can’t decide whether he’s being pigeonholed or if they just think he might have some good ideas. He tells her that she’ll possibly be getting a call from the head of DSS because his running route might have been a little hard for the agents to keep up with and, much as they typically like Steve, they get crabby when he outruns them. He goes through the Christmas morning breakfast menu that the kids presented him with, and promises that he’ll actually go out and replace their decade old waffle iron tomorrow (even though he maintains that it still works and a glimpse of wire shouldn’t be enough reason for them to invest in a new one).

And then he says, “Also, Angie texted that she thinks we should consider getting a dog,” and Peggy knows that they’ve reached the true heart of the conversation.

Angie is an amazing press secretary, and she’s always been exceptionally good at coming up with little ways to boost the family’s image as a way of improving Peggy’s public profile. But it’s something Steve has never been comfortable with, no matter how much he considers Angie a friend.

“You know that I think your job is one of the most important in the world, and you’re amazing at what you do,” he continues. She almost never doubts Steve, whose tone is always so true and who is a terrible liar in any case, but with his voice serious like this, she is pulled under by belief. “And there are things we have to do to support your career. But I can’t let it shape this part of our life, okay?”

Eight months after the former president had passed away from a heart attack and the vice president unexpectedly and begrudgingly became President Phillips, he had called Peggy for a meeting at the White House. She does not know why she had assumed she was there, but it was certainly not to be informed that the Secretary of State was stepping down, and he wanted Peggy to become the new one. When she and Steve discussed it later that night, there had been other concerns, but the main thing they had talked about was whether it was the right decision for the kids. And as strongly as he had presented the argument for this new role being a wonderful example for their children of the boundlessness of their own futures, he had also been even more cautious than she about the potential invasion of privacy, and, more than that, the office expanding to take over their family.

“They’re our kids, and I want to let them be our kids and nothing else,” he had told her. “No cute first day of school pictures being released to try to push something out of the news cycle, and if we’d planned to have them attend some event with us and they don’t want to go anymore, we call a babysitter.” And she had agreed because he had been right. She had already been worried about the time the job required and how she would miss too much of their growing up due to factors out of her control; she couldn’t bear resentment breeding from her own decisions.

“I’ll speak with Angie,” she says now. “The only reason we should ever get a dog is if Mini finally puts up enough pictures of pit bull rescues to wear us down.”

“There’s a particularly good example on the bathroom mirror just now,” he says, and somehow he sounds a cleaner sort of tired now - perhaps simply sleepy instead. She can feel her own shoulders relaxing. “Big smile and everything. I can text you a picture.”

“Keep it up there,” she tells him. “I’ll be there to see it myself soon enough.”

“Three days now,” he says.

“Three days.”

* * *

“Peggy? What’s happening?”

His voice sounds entirely clear, even though she knows she must have just woken him up. She has no idea whether he has a special ring tone for her, if he sensed who it would be - or if he just knows that no one else would be calling him at this time of night.

“Sri Lanka was cut short,” she says, her words coming as quickly as her strides across the tarmac. “We weren’t meant to move on to Sokovia until later the evening, but we’ve just gotten word about Russian troop movements, and in light of the rhetoric on state television lately about rightful claims and rebuilding a greater Russia…”

She can hear the light clicking on in the background, knows even without any sign that he is sitting up, putting on his glasses although since his eye surgery he only needs them for reading and there isn’t anything in particular for him to read. He had told her once, sitting across the table from one another in the corner of their favorite Cambridge pub, that he remembers the first time he put on his first pair, how stunningly sharp the world had been as it came into focus, how powerful he had felt, suddenly able to take in everything around him.

“What can I do?” he asks, and she knows that he would do practically anything - walk to the UN, or punch a general, or fly across the world to hold her hand - if she asked him to. But what she needs from him is going to be much more difficult, in its own soft way.

“Just keep taking care of things at home,” she says. Her feet climb the stairs to the plane with alacrity and her head ducks automatically as she enters the door, but she barely notices. “And make sure that the children know that I love them and I’m sorry, because I’m not certain I’ll make it home in time.”

“They’ll know,” he says immediately. “We’ll invite Ana over. It’ll be okay.”

She pushes down the slightly watery feeling in her throat; she had so wanted to be at home. “And I hope you know that I love you as well.”

He promises, “I always will,” and then his voice becomes carefully, purposefully lighter. “Now go kick ass. You’ll see us when you can. And until then, my phone is always on.”

* * *

Her phone is always on too, always in her pocket or on the tabletop in a meeting, but there’s no time, and no time, and halfway around the world, her children are decorating the tree and putting up their stockings without her.

* * *

At first she thinks that there can be nothing better than being back in her own bed, with its familiar smell and the mattress she and Steve had chosen. She hadn’t even bothered to remove anything but her shoes before she crawled in, although she has been in the same suit for perhaps a full day at this point, and still she suspects that she could fall asleep here and now.

But then Steve stirs, rolls over, kisses her blearily as he puts an arm around her and pulls her close, and she knows that this is, indeed, better.

“Hey, you’re here,” he says, voice sleep-husky. “I was hoping, but I...You’re amazing.” He rests his cheek on the same pillow, his eyes meeting hers steadily. (He did buy new ones, and they’re delightfully plump.) 

“What if I told you that I simply decided that I had had enough and walked out before the negotiations were settled? I don’t think that would be particularly amazing.”

His laugh ripples over to her; up this close, she can see how it settles into the corners of his eyes. “I’d say it was a power move, and still amazing,” he tells her, making her laugh too, until she doesn’t.

“If I were going to walk out, it would have been because I couldn’t be away from my family at Christmas. You know that, don’t you?”

“Of course I do.” He takes her hand and presses it to his mouth. “But I also know that you’d never have left something like that hanging in the balance. Which means that you managed to protect everything out there in your care, and still came home to be with your family.”

“And what about the next time?” The question is out, very small and just a bit aching, before she even realizes that she wanted to ask it. “There might—There _will_ come a time where there is a birthday or a school event or a broken bone and I have to be away, when I simply won’t be able to manage to make it all work.”

“Then we handle it,” he says, not shrugging the questions off, just stating his answer plainly. 

She knows that sometimes people consider Steve naïve, overly optimistic in his views, seeing simplicity where there is none. But anyone who thinks that of him cannot recognize what she does: that he knows how to put in the work to _make_ things simple. That his mind, quick and strategic though it might be, can also cut through the extraneous things and find the heart of it all. It centers her, knowing that he is there to remind her of what is important.

He leans in, his eyes still on hers, and kisses her gently, his mouth sweet and comforting and a reminder that she has been away from him for too long. “For as long as you want to be in this job, we’ll handle it.” He kisses her again and his hand stays on her cheek after, thumb soothing over the skin there, lighting it up. “But this time, at least, I think you can celebrate that you did accomplish it all - and it was a lot. All those countries, all that smiling and deal-making, taking care of emergencies, you did it all, and I can’t tell you how much I admire that.”

She finds that she can’t speak for a moment. It isn’t that people don’t compliment her, it isn’t that Steve doesn’t compliment her; most of the time, though, there is too much moving around her to allow the words to sink in properly. Finally she says, “I wouldn’t have been able to do it without you.”

“I guess we make a pretty good team, then.” He smiles. “And I can’t think of anyone else I’d rather be on that team with.”

From outside their room, easily discernible in the early morning stillness, comes the sound of a door creaking open. Any footsteps are lost within the hallway carpet, but it’s not difficult to guess that a united sibling front is soon to come bounding in with reminders of presents.

“You’re sort of a miracle today,” Steve says. “They went to bed last night with you so far away, and they wake up to find you here.”

She thinks of her children, how bold and wonderful they are, how irritating and completely themselves, how hard she works to keep them safe. She thinks of Steve, with his loving eyes and steadfast spine: her partner, always her favorite person to talk to. She thinks of all of them in this home, in their family, together.

“I think we’re all a bit of a miracle,” she says back. “All of us, every day.” And she relaxes herself against him, warm and savoring and ready as the door begins to open.

**Author's Note:**

> I watched Madam Secretary a couple of months ago and couldn't get the idea of Secretary of State Carter (and Professor Rogers!) out of my head. It mostly turned into 7k of trivial banter, but here we are anyway with this (somewhat belated) piece.
> 
> Peggy's trip is based on one that Hillary Clinton took in 2012 which went France-Afghanistan-Japan-Mongolia-Vietnam-Laos-Cambodia-Egypt-Israel: thirteen days, and 27,000 miles altogether.
> 
> The title is a take on _I'll Hold You In My Heart (Till I Can Hold You In My Arms)_ by Eddy Arnold.


End file.
